Mets Sign Jose Quintana for Two Years

Mets Sign Jose Quintana for Two Years, $26 Million

By Chris Gray

Photo by Dilip Vishwanat/Getty Images

December 7, 2022

The New York Mets made the decision to sign veteran lefty starter José Quintana to a two-year contract and $26 million on Wednesday morning. Quintana began the 2022 season with the Pittsburgh Pirates and was traded mid-season to the St. Louis Cardinals. Prior to the trade, Quintana had pitched to a 3.50 ERA with 7.8 strikeouts per nine innings. After the trade, Quintana pitched to a 2.01 ERA and 0.1 home runs per nine innings. Quintana led all of MLB in home runs allowed per nine innings, at only 0.4. His ERA+ prior to the trade was 119 but jumped to 191 after the trade. He finished with a combined ERA of 2.93 and an ERA+ of 137 in 165 2/3 innings.

Part of Quintana’s second-half success came from a drop in hard-hit percentage. For the Pirates, batters were hitting 38.6% of balls with an exit velocity of 95 mph or more. After the trade to the Cardinals, that statistic dropped to 31.7%. At the same time, Quintana raised his ground ball rate from 45.5% to 48.6%. This is one of the reasons that Quintana had such a great second half – the Cardinals have great fielding. Quintana was causing batters to put the ball on the ground and the Cardinals fielders were making outs.

Quintana also had a bounce-back season in terms of innings pitched in 2022. In 2021, he only threw in 63 innings. And in 2020, which was the year of COVID, he only had 10 innings pitched. Prior to those two seasons, Quintana had two consecutive seasons of 170-plus innings pitched. The Mets will look for Quintana to maintain his durability in the next two seasons.

Mets Starters After Quintana Signing

After signing Justin Verlander on Monday, the Mets have Verlander, Max Scherzer, Carlos Carrasco, Quintana, and Tylor Megill to fill out their rotation. Additionally, the Mets have Joey Lucchesi and Elieser Hernandez available, which makes their starting pitching suddenly appear relatively deep after losing Jacob deGrom to free agency. The Mets’ decision to sign Quintana seems like one that will solidify their rotation with a veteran for the next two years. At a $13 million average annual value, Quintana’s contract is relatively inexpensive compared to other options available. So this seems like a great move for the Mets.

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Chris Gray

Chris is a writer, philosopher, and web developer. He is currently the Web Developer as well as an Editor and Contributor for SportRelay.

When Chris was young, he played Little League Baseball for years. In addition, he used to look at the statistics on baseball cards to compare the different players and trade the cards with his friends. As a teenager, he worked as a Computer Technician until he landed a position as a Network Administrator at a middle school in Los Angeles, California.

Feeling unfulfilled with a lack of education to combine with his work and life experience, he returned to school, obtained a Bachelor of Arts Degree in Philosophy from UCLA, and now spends his time writing, investing, thinking, programming, and enjoying baseball.